The recent growth in popularity of the Internet has significantly increased the number of Internet users and the number of Internet sites (also referred to as “web sites”). Web sites may provide various types of information to users, offer products or services for sale, and provide games and other forms of entertainment. Many web sites require users to “register” by providing personal information before the web server grants access to the site. This registration information may include the user's name, account number, address, telephone number, e-mail address, computer platform, age, gender, or hobbies. The registration information collected by the web site may be necessary to complete transactions (such as commercial or financial transactions). Additionally, information can be collected which allows the web site operator to learn about the visitors to the site to better target its future marketing activities or adjust the information provided on the web site. The collected information may also be used to allow the web site to contact the user directly (e.g., via e-mail) in the future to announce, for example, special promotions, new products, or new features of the web site.
When registering with a web site for the first time, the web site typically requests that the user select a login ID and an associated password. The login ID allows the web site to identify the user and retrieve the user's information during subsequent user visits to the web site. Generally, the login ID must be unique to the web site such that no two users have the same login ID. The password associated with the login ID allows the web site to authenticate the user during subsequent visits to the web site. The password also prevents others (who do not know the password) from accessing the web site using the user's login ID. This password protection is particularly important if the web site stores private or confidential information about the user, such as financial information or medical records.
If a user visits several different web sites, each web site may require entry of similar registration information about the user, such as the user's name, mailing address, and e-mail address. This repeated entry of identical data is tedious when visiting multiple web sites in a short period of time. Many web sites require the user to register before accessing any information provided on the web site. Thus, the user must enter the requested registration information before they can determine whether the site contains any information of interest.
After registering with multiple web sites, the user must remember the specific login ID and password used with each web site or other Internet service. Without the correct login ID and password, the user must re-enter the registration information. A particular user is likely to have different login IDs and associated passwords on different web sites. For example, a user named Bob Smith may select “smith” as his login ID for a particular site. If the site already has a user with a login ID of “smith” or requires a login ID of at least six characters, then the user must select a different login ID. After registering at numerous web sites, Bob Smith may have a collection of different login IDs, such as: smith, smith1, bsmith, smithb, bobsmith, bob_smith, and smithbob. Further, different passwords may be associated with different login IDs due to differing password requirements of the different web sites (e.g., password length requirements or a requirement that each password include at least one numeric character and/or at least one uppercase character). Thus, Bob Smith must maintain a list of web sites, login IDs, and associated passwords for all sites that he visits regularly.
Computer-based services, such as Web portals, instant messaging, e-mail, and the like, often require routing the user to one or more collaborating affiliate web sites to obtain desired services. Each site may require user authentication as described above. Typically, web sites expose “shortcut” links to common web services. For example, a web site may provide a clickable link to “send an e-mail to your friend” when a user who subscribes to a partnering e-mail service visits the particular site. Unfortunately, conventional systems do not effectively route a user from one web site to another for performing web services. Although shortcut links to web services are known, the use of a conventional link requires that the uniform resource locator (URL) for each web service be known and maintained by the source web site (i.e., where the link is displayed). Moreover, a conventional link is limited to a single web service. For these reasons, improved routing is desired to permit a web site to provide a clickable link for the user's e-mail or other web service even though the source web site does not know the URL of the destination site providing the service. Such a system is further desired for providing effective, automatic routing even though the source web site does not know either the user's login status, such as whether the user is signed into the destination service, or the specific application programming interface (API) for the service. Such a system is particularly desirable with a multi-site user authentication system where the site that provides a particular service for the user may depend on the user's domain (e.g., e-mail at hotmail.com vs. msn.com).